The New York Times is participating in the dissemination of the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it in one way or another via WikiLeaks. My friend Steve Hayward recalls that only last year the New York Times ostentatiously declined to publish or post any of the Climategate emails because they had been illegally obtained. Surely readers will recall Times reporter Andrew Revkin's inspiring statement of principle: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

Interested readers may want to compare and contrast Revkin's statement of principle with the editorial note posted by the Times on the WikiLeaks documents this afternoon. Today the Times cites the availability of the documents elsewhere and the pubic interest in their revelations as supporting their publication by the Times. Both factors applied in roughly equal measure to the Climategate emails.

Without belaboring the point, let us note simply that the two statements are logically irreconcilable. Perhaps something other than principle and logic were at work then, or are at work now. Given the Times's outrageous behavior during the Bush administration, the same observation applies to the Times's protestations of good faith.

GM,Agreed. The hypocracy of the NYT knows no bounds. There is also the profit issue too. This latest leak is a great money maker for the news media whereas climate gate probably would not be such good "goosip"

On another note with regards to Hillary's spying who in their right mind doesn't think spying is the approach taken by all in diplomacy? In some regard this story is like a hollywood gossip magazine. The pro Hillarites probably think this helps her look strong and pro US standing up for us. Has anyone read anything that really can substantiate any accomplishment on the Hill's part overseas?

David Corn thinks she should resign in disgrace. Her credibility with the foreingers is caput so he says. (LIke she was ever an honest INJUN about anything!) Good luck. She might resign if she was to run against Obama. No other way. She is still unning. She had an article she pretends to have written published in the Economst this week. It speaks about America is an still will be the leader in the world etc etc. Of course she is still running for Prez.

*****Should Hillary Clinton resign as secretary of state due to the WikiLeaks revelations? My friend Jack Shafer at Slate makes a good case. His reason: Clinton, like predecessor Condoleezza Rice, signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations. Cables went out under her name telling State Department officials overseas to collect the fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans of African leaders, to obtain passwords, credit card numbers, and frequent flyer accounts used by foreign diplomats, and to gather private information on United Nations officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Diplomats are not spies (though spies do pose as diplomats). They do collect information -- by working contacts overseas, reviewing the local media, interacting with the population of the nations where they are stationed -- often acquiring intelligence that is as valuable, if not more so, than the secrets snatched by intelligence officials. But there is a line between a diplomat and a spook. The former uses aboveboard methods to find out what his or her government needs to know about other nations; the latter resorts to espionage, wiretaps, bribery, and other underhanded means. There are many reasons for keeping the two roles distinct. Diplomats are awarded immunity and can gain certain access overseas because they are not spies.

Now that the Clinton State Department has blurred the line, U.S. diplomats, who have to contend with the assumption that any U.S. official abroad is really working for the CIA, will have an additional burden to bear when doing their jobs overseas.

Of the many WikiLeaks revelations that have emerged in the past few days -- and more are to come in the next few months, as the renegade website continues to release batches of the 251,287 State Department cables it has obtained -- the news that U.S. diplomats have been turned into part-time spies certainly warrants thorough investigation. Obama administration officials, of course, have tried to make the leak itself the paramount issue. Attorney General Eric Holder has promised prosecutions if "we can find anybody involved in breaking American law." Clinton has called the leak "an attack on America's foreign policy interests," claiming it has endangered "innocent people." Republican Rep. Peter King urged Clinton to determine if WikiLeaks can be designated a terrorist organization. Sen. Joe Lieberman has called on the United States and other governments to shut down WikiLeaks. Sarah Palin, naturally, blamed President Barack Obama's "incompetence" for the leaks, as she erroneously equated this episode with a website posting pages of her new book without her permission.

Yet there have not been such passionate calls for investigating the transformation of U.S. diplomats into undercover snoops. The administration's strategy -- as is to be expected -- is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress. Still, this part of the story could easily get lost in the WikiLeaks wash, as multiple revelations appear simultaneously: Arab nations practically encouraging Washington to back an attack on Iran, U.S. diplomats describing Afghan President Hamid Karzai as "driven by paranoia," and -- don't forget this one -- Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi traveling the world with a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse. The diplomats-into-spies news is a scandal on its own. But thanks to WikiLeaks fire-hose approach, this exposé is somewhat overshadowed by the entire documents dump.

No matter what sort of noises Clinton makes about how the disclosures are "an attack on America" and "the international community," as she did today, she's become the issue. She'll never be an effective negotiator with diplomats who refuse to forgive her exuberances, and even foreign diplomats who do forgive her will still regard her as the symbol of an overreaching United States. Diplomacy is about face, and the only way for other nations to save face will be to give them Clinton's scalp. . . .

There is no way that the new WikiLeaks leaks don't leave Hillary Clinton holding the smoking gun. The time for her departure may come next week or next month, but sooner or later, the weakened and humiliated secretary of state will have to pay.In many other nations, news such as this would indeed prompt resignations of high officials. The United States does not have this noble tradition. Here, government officials hold on for dear life when trouble erupts. (How many U.S. officials resigned when it turned out the Bush-Cheney administration was wrong about WMDs in Iraq? None.) So one can expect Clinton to dig in her heels, as the administration decries the leaker and ignores the leaks. (And with Obama in a weak position politically after the 2010 elections, he's not likely to shove aside a woman who's still fancied by much of his party's base.) Perhaps the coming WikiLeaks leaks will cause additional difficulties for Clinton. But given the ADD of the national media, she probably can survive the current storm. Shafer has a sound argument, but I'd settle for seeing Clinton and subordinates grilled on Capitol Hill about the spookification of U.S. diplomats. But that's probably as likely as the White House inviting Julian Assange to a holiday party.****

Pretty much any nation-state that is anybody on the world stage uses their embassies and diplomatic cover for espionage purposes. Spies are generally divided into "legals" and "illegals". The "legals" have diplomatic creds and when caught get PNG'ed (Meaning persona non grata) and ejected from the foreign nation. "Illegals" operate under deep cover, because if they are discovered, they face whatever the capturing authorities might wish to do to them, including torture, imprisonment and execution.

Will Thomas Friedman just renounce his citizenship and move to China already?

By: Mark Hemingway 12/01/10 12:33 PM

Those of us masochistic enough to read the New York Times op-ed page with any regularity know that Tom Friedman has a long and distinguished history of praising the autocratic communist government in China as means of denigrating things here in the U.S. Today's column, however, might just take the cake. It starts with a cutesy premise -- what if China's diplomatic cables were wikileaked? What would they say?:

Thank you. He deserved that. One of his other drumbeats is that we are addicted to oil and that is the heart of all our problems.

We are not 'addicted' to oil. We are powered by oil. The impact that imbalance has on international trade is caused by our refusal to produce energy, not by our consumption.

If the U.S. produced as much as we consumed, our impact on the global market would be net zero, gas would still be at 99cents/gallon, the Saudis and Chavez's would be less enriched, the trade deficit and dollar outflow for oil would be nothing and all our businesses would be far more competitive.

Producing ethanol, solar or windmills off of government subsidies would accomplish none of that.

Sen. Vitter from Louisiana says that 97% of our oil is still off limits by government regulation. Even with all those prohibitions it is still our best transportable fuel source. Friedman should look into freeing American oil production if his concerns were at all what he says they are.

I can tell you that the air pollution in China's cities makes the worst smog alert day in LA's history seem like a fresh spring morning in a Colorado mountain meadow. My wife used to do business in China's megafactories. She saw metal plating factories dumping toxic sludge directly into rivers that were water sources for poor villages downstream. The same villages suffer incredible rates of children born with birth defects. Other poor villages have entire populations slowly dying of AIDS, because they sold plasma for a pittance of money and the equipment used to extract the plasma, meant to be disposable was re-used over and over again, infecting everyone with the HIV virus.

The world is not crowded. Some 3rd world parts of it are, ,mostly where collectivists and poverty rule and individual freedom and decision making is stifled. And the cities where they the collectivists all want us all to live are crowded. Has anyone ever looked down when they fly across our fruited plain? We just had the coldest Thanksgiving here in decades, we've had no melt off and it's still snowing, people are dying from the cold across Europe, the 'research' his book was based is all discredited, yet he is an award winning author - like Krugman - and Michael Moore and Al Gore? Why are there no updates to the conclusions when we find out the underlying data was tweaked and biased?

I have seen more accurate reporting in The Enquirer.

GM is correct about China. Friedman writes about 'poisons', then gives China a pass for filth while lambasting us for exhaling a harmless trace molecule that plants breathe. I wish that people who write about economics or environmentalism were required by their employer to study it first. If we really needed CO2-free energy, every book of his would be about nuclear energy and a larger grid.

The New York Times Nov. 20, 2009, on its decision not to publish secret data: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

The Times a year later (Nov. 29, 2010) on its decision to publish illegally acquired WikiLeaks data: Despite their provenance, "The Times believes that the (WikiLeaks) documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises, and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."

I wish they'd just be honest and say "We believe in man made global warming, or at least want the policies of leftist economic control as desired by MMGW advocates imposed on the US, so we won't print anything to show that the science is just made up horseshiite. As far as Wikileaks, anything that reduces America's strength, we support, being good leftists."

111th Congress Most Productive Ever: JournoList Alive & Well: Media Talking PointsIf there was ever any doubt that JourList (or it's successor) isn't up and running...the current talking points by the MSM that the 111th Congress is the most productive since the Great Society initiative of Johnson in the 1960's should put that to rest. Pretty much every outlet from NBC to the LATimes is saying this almost verbatim.

2010 a Banner Year for MSM’s Ministries of MistruthOn the big stories of the year, it's all the facts they wish to print.December 31, 2010 - by Tom Blumer

In George Orwell’s 1984, set in a pre-computer era, Winston Smith, working in the misnamed Ministry of Truth, alters documents that contradict or conflict with his totalitarian government’s take on history, wiping out inconvenient truths or revising them to fit the current template.

In 2010, the establishment press ramped up its propaganda role, acting as a collective of preemptive Winston Smiths. They ignored or massaged important news stories in ways that prevented the vast, relatively disengaged majority of the population (probably 85%, but perhaps as low as 80% thanks to the Tea Party movement) from getting their arms around the truth without doing a great deal of independent research.

Reviewing my blog’s 2010 posts, I thought I might have a hard time coming up with ten obvious Smith-like examples. I found about 50. If I’m lucky, I may have addressed 10% of the really offensive instances that occurred throughout the year. What follows are ten of the worst, with occasional multiple offenses packed into one item. Except for the final two, the worst by far that I found, they are in no particular order.

1. Refusing to describe the U.S. homebuilding industry and new home market as the worst since World War II. The current meme is that it’s the “worst in 47 years of record-keeping,” except that in most instances the “record-keeping” phrase is omitted, giving readers the clear impression that at least 2010 wasn’t as bad as 1963.

That’s not so. 2010 was 43% worse than 1963, and worse than every full year after Japan blessedly surrendered to us — even before adjusting for population.

Reporting the truth would make it painfully obvious that the Obama administration’s HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) and other initiatives have not only failed to revive the market, but have harmed it. The press won’t tolerate that.

2. “Channel-stuffing” at Government/General Motors. From July through November, the company shipped 112,000 more cars to its dealers than its dealers sold, increasing dealer inventories to an unreasonable 90 days’ sales. In doing so, GM, which according to accounting rules recognizes a sale when a vehicle leaves the factory, created over $1 billion in shipped-ahead profit.

This is a very effective technique for dressing up the books ahead of an initial public offering and making things look good for a while thereafter. But it’s not sustainable without a huge upward spike in sales, which isn’t happening. None of this is news in the establishment press.

3. ObamaCare’s work and marriage disincentives. Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has shown that if ObamaCare ever takes full effect, those who wish to advance themselves could face marginal health care subsidy-loss rates of more than 100% (I’m not kidding). A person’s “reward” for earning more income would be having to pay more for the same health care coverage than the additional wages they have earned.

Additionally, couples who marry or wish to stay married would lose thousands of dollars a year by doing so. If not stopped, the subsidy structure will virtually kill any incentives for financial self-improvement, and will be a recipe for breaking up untold numbers of families. Of course, the establishment press has raised no concerns over this.

4. Global warmists’ admissions. First, there was Professor Phil Jones’s February concession that there has been no global warming since 1995. Then there was IPCC economist Ottmar Edenhofer’s frank November assertion that climate policy “is redistributing the world’s wealth.” Apparently only English newspapers and editorial writers at Investor’s Business Daily care about these things. Meanwhile, journalists moaned about how people were no longer buying into the supposedly “settled science.”

5. Multiple falsehoods packed into one report. For sheer volume and chutzpah, it’s hard to beat the falsehoods the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger churned out in one September dispatch. First, he informed readers that trillion-dollar deficits didn’t happen until two years ago (wrong; the 2008 deficit was “only” $455 billion). Then he claimed that tax collections through eleven months of fiscal 2010 were up from the same period in fiscal 2009 (wrong again; they were down). Finally, he wrote that government spending was down compared to the previous year (three times wrong; true spending, as opposed to “outlays” as defined by Uncle Sam, was up by over 4% at the time). I asked the AP to retract Crutsinger’s false claims. To my knowledge, the wire service never has, and the falsehoods are still out there.

6. The State in the boardroom. The “Small Business Lending Act” passed in the fall contains a little-known provision requiring banks wishing to participate to accept federal “capital investment” in their institutions. It’s little-known because the press has shown little interest in reporting it.

7. Flubbed scrub at the New York Times. The scrub goes back to a December 2009 article (the link is to the post-scrub version), but relates to the Ground Zero mosque, one of the most misreported stories of 2010. In August, as the controversy heated up, a few bloggers who had excerpted that December story noted that several passages were missing from the original, including this quote from GZM spokesperson Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf:

New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic.

The article’s co-author, Sharaf Mowjood, is a “Former Government Relations Coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations.” It is reasonable to believe that Mowjood recognized the odious religious triumphalism in Rauf’s statement, and had it and other questionable items expunged shortly after they appeared online and before they went to print.

8. Skimmers, what skimmers? The press said virtually nothing about the EPA’s utter lack of preparedness for the BP oil spill. Journalists also took very little interest in the fact that several nations offered many forms of tangible aid to help the federal government contain and clean up the spill, and were either turned down flat or severely delayed. One Associated Press item whined that many nations wishing to provide help expected to be (gasp!) reimbursed for their costs.

9. He didn’t read it; what’s your point? Except for the uniqueness of the final item, this example would be firmly in the running for 2010′s worst media muff. In May, regarding Arizona’s commonsense immigration enforcement measure, long after irresponsible charges of nativism and racism had been hurled by many administration members, President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress: “I have not had a chance to — I’ve glanced at it. I have not read it.” The press virtually ignored this shocking dereliction of duty.

10. Shirley Sherrod. No review of 2010 media “Smithing” can be complete with mentioning Sherrod, the USDA employee who was fired after Andrew Breitbart showed a video of a speech she made to an NAACP chapter. Sherrod and her husband Charles received the free press ride of the year. The $13 million the pair received in a farming racial discrimination lawsuit settlement just before she took her USDA job in July 2009 was almost never reported. The documented proof from a longtime leftist that the pair’s New Communities “cooperative” exploited child labor, paid less than minimum wage, illegally resisted union organizing efforts, and employed scab labor never made it into the mainstream media.

Finally, the press has fiercely resisted reporting the pervasive fraud in a related legal action meant to compensate black farmers who truly suffered discrimination in past decades. It is an operation that Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com recently exposed as a false claims gravy train. CNN actually covered for the government by relaying without question its contention that only three claims were fraudulent.

Will the press’s Winston Smiths be more or less aggressive in 2011? As New Media gets stronger, the establishment will likely get more desperate. So the answer is probably “Yes.”

Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.

Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned President George W. Bush against invading Iraq on the basis of the Pottery Barn rule: "You break it, you own it." But things worked out differently: Iraq was broken, but it's never been owned by Washington.

When I saw it was Time magazine I pretty much stopped right there. My disrespect for this publication is such that I cannot be bothered to say why. Its like when someone asked Louie Armstrong what jazz was, he is said to have answered "If you have to ask, I can't tell you."

I will say that I seethe quite a bit that the same folks here in the US who did their very best to sabotage and undercut our efforts there complain that it did not go well. This is not to say that there was not a loyal opposition; it is only to say that there was a very disloyal one too and that the damage it did was incalculable.

When I saw it was Time magazine I pretty much stopped right there. My disrespect for this publication is such that I cannot be bothered to say why. Its like when someone asked Louie Armstrong what jazz was, he is said to have answered "If you have to ask, I can't tell you."

I will say that I seethe quite a bit that the same folks here in the US who did their very best to sabotage and undercut our efforts there complain that it did not go well. This is not to say that there was not a loyal opposition; it is only to say that there was a very disloyal one too and that the damage it did was incalculable.

That's too bad. Several of the stories were ones that I found interesting. Jihadists in Somalia and unrest among the Irani powers that be, for instance.

Well, I have respect for you, so I will give it another look-- but I really do hold Time in great contempt.

, , ,

Just looked and my contempt remains unchanged

The bias is systemic to the publication. For example, the BP oil spill piece is phrased to let BO off the hook; where for example is the mention of the skimmers from the Dutch and other countries that BO refused because it would have annoyed certain US maritime unions? Or the Somalia story making the rise of the Islamo Fascists our fault? Or the portrayal of concern over Islamic immigration simply as xenophobia? All this on top of the utterly specious analysis of Iraq , , ,

For my idea of stuff worth the time, I will email you Stratfor's Top Ten stories of the decade

I got your email, and will read it in the AM. I take your point, but I still see merit in the Time piece. It is silly, I think, to assume that a single news outlet will provide the whole story. Bias will persist whether political, geographical, gender etc. What the stories can do is bring them to our attention and then allow us to research the background stories. A little research never hurt anyone!

Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and former pastor of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., addresses a breakfast gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, April 28, 2008. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.

The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

Yes, any media entity could potentially introduce a story not being covered by other media entities. Given the corruption demonstrated by Time and other MSM entities involved in JournoList, do you trust them?

"Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

Yes and they are setting up the Republicans now. Notice now that the Repubs control Congress the mantra throughout the media is< "the big question are the Republicans going to compromise with Obama which is of course what the voters want (wink wink) or are they going to be the party of 'no'"?

I don't recall hearing anything like this when W was President and Pelosi controlled Congress in '06 to '08.

Notice the bias difference. This IS the hurdle the Republicans must surmount. If they cannot voice why they are better for America than the Radical progressive agenda pushed through by the academic, union, lawyer, media cabal than they will not win.

Of course Time probably does have some content with merit, but as the piece posted by GM illustrates, IMHO it is a seriously deceptive publication. I have no problem with reading material with which I disagree, but I find it inefficient and counterproductive to spend time with things whose integrity I doubt. For example, even though I agree with Debka's biases in favor of Israel, I refuse to read it because I find it to be a seriously irresponsible source. Similarly I regard Time like I regard Oliver Stone's movie on the JFK assasination-- too hard to discern the lines between fact and fiction.

Yes, any media entity could potentially introduce a story not being covered by other media entities. Given the corruption demonstrated by Time and other MSM entities involved in JournoList, do you trust them?

GM, I don't trust much about any news source, mainstream or otherwise. That is why I suggested that if one source can introduce me to a story, it can provide the impetus to do expanded research on my own. My trust of Time is not higher or lower than New York Times, Fox News, The Economist, Commentary.

My training in open source intelligence analysis says use a minimum of 3 sources of information. This means sources of information that can be trusted. Time and other MSM "JournoList-ism" practitioners cannot be seen as journalists in the classical definition. Rather than news, they write editorials in the guise of news articles, with a intent of propaganidizing the public rather than informing.

Sure, but you have classify sources as Time as low on the reliability scale. Were Time an informant, I wouldn't try to get a warrant based on their collective testimony on a subject alone, without corroborating information from much more credible sources.

Time and other JournoLists are useful when one wants to see what the talking points are from the DNC/white house on the topic du jour.

"Time and other MSM "JournoList-ism" practitioners cannot be seen as journalists in the classical definition. Rather than news, they write editorials in the guise of news articles, with a intent of propaganidizing the public rather than informing."

YES.

BD, I agree that with your mindset you can get useful starting points from JournoLists, indeed very JKD of you to do so but FWIW for myself I think there are other sources more that give more value for my time. For example see CCP's post of the interview with Khosla on January 1 with regard to energy and environmental predictions on the Stock Market thread of our "S,C, &H" forum.

Anyway, I suspect we are near to confusing a horse with a cat-- the cat may have 9 lives, but this horse is probably dead by now from the beating we have given him Last word yours

BD, I agree that with your mindset you can get useful starting points from JournoLists, indeed very JKD of you to do so but FWIW for myself I think there are other sources more that give more value for my time. For example see CCP's post of the interview with Khosla on January 1 with regard to energy and environmental predictions on the Stock Market thread of our "S,C, &H" forum.

Anyway, I suspect we are near to confusing a horse with a cat-- the cat may have 9 lives, but this horse is probably dead by now from the beating we have given him Last word yours

I think part of the issue is that we come at this from different starting points. Unlike most people, I don't look at news just to be informed. I look at news that can be digested, is informative, has a different tack, and lots of other reasons and purposes. While I certainly read for myself, and increasingly for this forum, I also use the materials professionally. While you (plural) may not find Time, NYT, or other publications to be worth your while, in the end they are not less trustworthy, biased, useful, important, etc. than most other sources.

Media are designed to make money, and increasingly news has become "softer" no matter the medium. My favorite recent example was a (seemingly serious) discussion about the way that President Obama walked his dog. To blame Time for having biases is silly. They attempt to reach their audience. Fox News does the same thing.

This is why I suggest that any news source can provide an intro to a story. NO news outlet can, will, or should provide a comprehensive look at any story. They just can't. There are contradictory book length treatments of much of the world's problems.

I have written a 2-3 page article and used 30 sources. Not all of them were "expert", "right", "mainstream", or some other adjective. However, all of them provided a small lens into the story I was telling.

Simply dismissing a story because Time, or similar, tells it is too simple. A professor of mine once asked the question of a bureaucrat who was creating an advisory board. In general, the board should be comprised of experts who are more right than wrong. If, however, there was one person who was only right 10% of the time, but was right when everyone else was wrong, wouldn't you want him on the board?

It seems to me that we, at least as martial artists, do this same thing (a head nod to the JKD in me). If I go to a BJJ seminar with some hotshot, trim, young,black belt and he teaches me only one thing in 2 days that I feel like I make mine, I don't dismiss his expertise. I am glad I went to the seminar.

This analogy may not work but... one of my best friends in college, scary to think he became a brain surgeon, use to say of drugs and music, I paraphrase best that I can recall: let them take the acid and the coke and the heroin, bands like the Doors, the Stones, the Dead, Pink Floyd. Then we buy the album for five bucks and enjoy the effects without risking the brain damage and overdoses of taking all those drugs ourselves.

In this case we have (figuratively) sent Bigdog to study Time magazine, the UK Guardian, and institutions of higher learning at very high risk to himself while we can sit back in our easy chairs in secure locations and read just the best of the best of what he finds there. I, for one, appreciate it and hope that he is able to eventually get out those places unharmed.

He mentioned going there not just for news. Besides his reasons and cross checking information, we should not lose touch with what other people are reading and thinking even if the motive is just to persuade or defeat them. We want the diversity of opinion here so (IMO) Let it Be. Attack or criticize based on specifics in the posts. Here goes.

It is strange to have Time which I guess is now CNN write about something/anything being under-reported. It should be the readers telling them what was under-reported. Still I found it interesting. (Also I want to read the 20 predictions again more closely.)

Point 1 includes the proverb about breaking Iraq so we have to fix it. True, that was our policy but it was BS to me in this sense. Iraq was broken before we got there, unless you can make the case that rape, torture and gassing your people into submission is normal or functional (unbroken). GM's take was correct IMO. The fun and profit in the media of harping on Iraq left with Bush. It made no sense with a new and enlightened Commander in Chief. With Afghanistan I think the press is mostly blocked from knowing anything helpful. In war that has some validity. What the press prints, the enemy knows.

They are right-on regarding the Somali story being a huge, under-reported, also not that far away - I believe there were 24 Somali-based, al Qaida related arrests in Minneapolis this past year. I suppose that doesn't sell until an airliner turns into fireworks. Same with tragedies like Congo and Sudan. People can't find an angle to relate to it or do anything about it; famine, rape and pillage is normal there. If peace or prosperity broke out that might be news. The Iran power struggle could have been the story of the year. Our press had nothing to report (no inside scoop) and our country did nothing to help. I wish Rahm had said never let an uprising against a tyrannical regime go to waste.

Bias from my point of view pops in on this one: '8. The Rise of Europe's Anti-immigrant Right'. Seems to me the story missed was the immigrants coming in and revolting against Europe. I have posted at least three different videos of that on this forum. Friends elsewhere (readers of Time and Newsweek?) mostly have no clue about what is happening there, where here it was harshly argued. One was a private grocery store ransacked for made in Israel products in a 'suburb' of Paris, home of the car fires. Another showed riots as Sweden couldn't allow spectators to watch their own national team play a home Davis Cup match because the opponent was Israel and the site was Sweden's 3rd largest city Malmo, an Islamic stronghold where a third of the city is 'foreign born', soon to be an Islamic majority city. Different video, same story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLUBtc1iWvc - I wonder what Time's coverage was. Watch and imagine there would not be some political backlash.

The oil spill story I thought was the story of the year. It played no part in the election that followed and hardly a word was written after the fix. Either it was way overblown while it was happening or horribly neglected by the media in followup. The lack of domestic drilling to match our consumption is still one of the worst, self-inflicted wounds in our economy and of all geopolitics. I have read nothing worthwhile yet about what we learned from this disaster.

Maybe those criticizing Time knew what they were doing. BD followed by posting an interview of Justice Scalia. It was short, but I love to hear people like that in their own words instead of having their minds read by punditry.

I am stunned at how much my post has generated, for a few reasons. 1, I genuinely found the original aricle posted by GM to be interesting. I then posted another article with a different list of underreported stories. I acknowledged the interest I had in GM's post, and thought there might be other stories of interest. Instead, the interest was that I used TIME MAGAZINE. Holy ape sh!+, Batman.

2, Guro Crafty has asked for a cease and desist. Something about a dead horse... keep kicking it, I'll let you, but I will no longer be brought into the session.

3, DougMacG, while I appreciate your interest (and I mean that sincerely), I'm not sure how my posting a single article from TIME MAGAZINE is like taking acid. As I have said earlier, I post stories because I find them to be interesting. I found the Scalia interview to be interesting, but not because of a browbeating.

4, I attempt to convey a general appreciation for the materials presented /shared in this forum, even when I do not agree with them, but that is not the norm, it would seem. If I don't agree with them, I will certainly acknowledge that, but it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the fact that the person found the story worth sharing. Let me repeat, I don't always post stories I agree with. I post those I find interesting. If the articles, etc. that I post don't interest you, don't read them. But to have 3 day discussion about TIME MAGAZINE, and not the story is pointless. See 2 above, and the rule about remaining "friends at the end of the day."

BD, There was humor intended that did not come through. My timing was lousy because of reading along without having the time to post. I'm sorry for making things worse. I was sincere in saying I appreciated the original post. - Doug

BD, There was humor intended that did not come through. My timing was lousy because of reading along without having the time to post. I'm sorry for making things worse. I was sincere in saying I appreciated the original post. - Doug

Rereading your post, there is humor and it does come through. My sincere apologies, DMG.

Jessie has been my sports hero for about 3 years. You have to see the photo with her family (#9) to realize how small these girls are. If anyone of adult size had the efficiency of movement and utilization of strength she has, the power and control generated would be unimaginable. The top men tennis pros came to town for an exhibition last year but everyone left there talking about the earlier play of the 11 year old girls. Her best friend and doubles partner was world champion at 9 and flown around the world to compete while we met Jessie at a small tournament near their hometown. Totally humble, unaffected and into her craft, she taught herself a one-handed backhand while the others all need two. At 11 or barely 12 playing high school level she beat the top player from each of the top three schools to reach the state finals in tennis, and her best sport is hockey. Bet on gold for team USA the first time she plays hockey in the Olympics.

Hanging On as the Boundaries ShiftBy ARTHUR S. BRISBANEPublished: January 8, 2011

FOUR months as public editor has given me a working list, perhaps only that, of the challenges The Times faces and the faults readers find in this most important of American newspapers. As a representative of the reader, I’d like to post that list today and invite you to consider it, then add to it as you will.

The blending of opinion with news is a good place to start. Although there is a distinct separation between the Editorial Page operation headed by Andrew Rosenthal and the news operation headed by Bill Keller, the news pages are laced with analytical and opinion pieces that work against the premise that the news is just the news.

The most glaring recent example that drew my eye was the Dec. 15 front-page column by David Leonhardt analyzing the debate over health care reform. The piece, a day-two follow-up to the news that a federal judge in Virginia had overturned the health care law’s central provision, drew complaints from readers like Sheila R. Markin of Sarasota, Fla., who wrote: “The Times does itself no good by putting these articles on the front page. It loses its status as an objective newspaper.”

She added, “I want my newspaper to be known for its unbiased articles on the front page.” Ms. Markin nailed it with this last sentence. I have no problem with Mr. Leonhardt’s analysis; he’s an accomplished economics writer and is entitled to his view. It was The Times’s decision to place it on Page 1 that posed the difficulty, sending the message that The Times’s take on health care is synonymous with Mr. Leonhardt’s, which some see as progressive or liberal.

The issue of opinion versus news in the news pages is, I think, one of boundaries. In my experience, people value boundaries, rely on them and grow uncomfortable when they move.

And here’s another form of boundary-slippage that readers complain about, one that is technology-driven. Once upon a time, the final print edition set a final, definitive version of a story and headline, leaving for posterity an immutable document of record, albeit one gathering dust in the newspaper morgue. No more. Now, appearing online, stories often undergo more frequent updates and headline changes. The same story often appears under distinctly different headlines in print, on the Web and on the other digital devices the Times feeds.

Amy Goldstein, a reader from Princeton, N.J., wrote to me that she found all this versioning problematic. “How does the newspaper of record handle this?” she asked, referring to changing versions of an obituary of the movie director Arthur Penn. “I read something, and now poof, it’s gone without a trace.”

While the requirements of digital publishing sometimes make things go “poof,” in other ways the digital environment commits things to a kind of immortality that itself is sometimes unwelcome.

In one case I wrote about, I argued that the paper had run roughshod in using the names of a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old who were named in a civil suit. But there is no fix for a problem like this after-the-fact. When it comes to the notion of expunging the identities, Times policy is strict: the electronic record is not to be changed. To me, this argues for taking far more care in protecting individuals’ privacy in the first place.

Indeed, taking sufficient care on the front end of reporting and publishing is one of the most difficult challenges for The Times as news consumption shifts rapidly to digital venues like the Web, tablets and cellphones. The newspaper scored a clear victory in this respect with its handling of the WikiLeaks material. With its deep roster of experienced reporters and computer-aided reporting expertise, The Times carefully mounted a responsible assemblage of coverage.

Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment lawyer, gives The Times’s WikiLeaks work very high marks. And he notes that the stakes are huge, given the peril that news organizations face when dealing with secret material — dealings that could potentially subject them to prosecution under the Espionage Act.

“Once the legislature or the judiciary gets the notion that the entities before it are reckless,” Mr. Abrams warns, “the less likely they are to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Unfortunately, though, the pressure at The Times to produce in a high-speed news environment sometimes leads to much less careful work. You could ask Greg Brock, the senior editor who handles corrections for The Times. In 2010, he told me, The Times corrected 3,500 errors, most commonly spellings, dates and historical facts.

“What leads to these type errors?” Mr. Brock said. “Reporters and editors are rushed on deadline; they simply fail to double-check; the reporter misreads her notes. But many of these errors stem from Googling a name and taking the spelling — or historical fact — as gospel.”

Speed has other ill effects. For journalists charged with feeding the digital news flow, life is a barely sustainable cycle of reporting, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and, in some cases, moderating the large volume of readers who comment online. I applaud these journalists for their commitment but worry that the requirements of the digital age are translating into more errors and eventual burnout.

Certainly, as Mr. Brock also notes, the digital age has spawned a growing chorus of bloggers who closely monitor The Times. “A blogger points out an error, challenges something The Times has published and urges its followers to write The Times,” he said. “So they do so by the hundreds — particularly on politically charged issues.”

Looking ahead, the twin demands of digital and print will remain for the foreseeable future (and p.s., it’s not readily foreseeable). The Times will have to maintain deep investments in both domains while the media mix sorts itself out — an expensive proposition that puts pressure on The New York Times Company’s already slim profit margin.

So it seems that, as the New Year dawns, boundaries will continue to shift, the pressures will mount, and much will depend on the success of The Times’s pending launch of its pay model — the pay-to-use system designed to generate revenue for the currently free NYTimes.com.

One thing I know I can count on: The readers will weigh in. Their passionate view — from outside the newspaper’s 52-story bubble on New York’s West Side — provides an essential balance and perspective that helps keep The New York Times on track.

Normally this guy is a typicall super progressive, but today he actually shows some integrity.========================

The Tucson Witch HuntBy CHARLES M. BLOWPublished: January 14, 2011

Immediately after the news broke, the air became thick with conjecture, speculation and innuendo. There was a giddy, almost punch-drunk excitement on the left. The prophecy had been fulfilled: “words have consequences.” And now, the right’s rhetorical chickens had finally come home to roost.

The dots were too close and the temptation to connect them too strong. The target was a Democratic congresswoman. There was the map of her district in the cross hairs. There were her own prescient worries about overheated rhetoric.

Within hours of the shooting, there was a full-fledged witch hunt to link the shooter to the right.

The only problem is that there was no evidence then, and even now, that overheated rhetoric from the right had anything to do with the shooting. (In fact, a couple of people who said they knew him have described him as either apolitical or “quite liberal.”) The picture emerging is of a sad and lonely soul slowly, and publicly, slipping into insanity.

I have written about violent rhetoric before, and I’m convinced that it’s poisonous to our politics, that the preponderance of it comes from the right, and that it has the potential to manifest in massacres like the one in Tucson.

But I also know that potential, possibility and even plausibility are not proof.

The American people know it, too. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday, 42 percent of those asked said that political rhetoric was not a factor at all in the shooting, 22 percent said that it was a minor factor and 20 percent said that it was a major factor. Furthermore, most agreed that focusing on conservative rhetoric as a link in the shooting was “not a legitimate point but mostly an attempt to use the tragedy to make conservatives look bad.” And nearly an equal number of people said that Republicans, the Tea Party and Democrats had all “gone too far in using inflammatory language” to criticize their opponents.

Great. So the left overreacts and overreaches and it only accomplishes two things: fostering sympathy for its opponents and nurturing a false equivalence within the body politic. Well done, Democrats.

Now we’ve settled into the by-any-means-necessary argument: anything that gets us to focus on the rhetoric and tamp it down is a good thing. But a wrong in the service of righteousness is no less wrong, no less corrosive, no less a menace to the very righteousness it’s meant to support.

You can’t claim the higher ground in a pit of quicksand.

Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof.

I know I'm dating myself; and I am an old codger, but I long for the days when newscasters/reporters simply presented the news. If I wanted an "opinion" I would turn to the editorial page of the newspaper or read/listen to the news clearly labeled "editorial" or clearly "one reporter's opinion" occasionally offered at the end of the broadcast.Now, everyone seems to have a strong biased opinion; yet they call it "news" be it Fox or MSN or the N.Y. Times.

"There was a time when thoughtful people tried to be balanced. The old-style political columnists were famous for saying nothing. The presented both sides of any given issue in an "on the one hand/on the other" fashion, pretty much allowing readers to form their own opinions,"

Updated Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC, announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he is leaving “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” immediately.

The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days last November, came to an agreement with NBC’s corporate management late this week to settle his contract and step down.

In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it would be the last edition of the program. He offered no explanation other than on occasion, the show had become too much for him.

Mr. Olbermann thanked his viewers for their enthusiastic support of a show that had “gradually established its position as anti-establishment.”

In a statement, MSNBC said : “MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”

MSNBC announced that “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” would replace “Countdown” at 8 p.m., with “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz taking Mr. O’Donnell’s slot at 10 p.m. Mr. Olbermann did not discuss any future plans, but NBC executives said one term of his settlement will keep him from moving to another network for an extended period of time.

NBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast.

Mr. Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension in 2008 for an estimated $30 million. He hosted “Countdown” at 8 p.m. since 2003 and it became the foundation of the channel’s surge to status as the second-ranked news channel on cable television, after Fox News, surpassing the one-time leader CNN.

Mr. Olbermann’s outspoken, and sometimes controversial, support of liberal positions and Democratic candidates redefined MSNBC from a neutral news channel to one with that openly sought to offer viewers on the left their own voice, much as Fox News has done so successfully for an audience of viewers with conservative opinions.

Mr. Olbermann challenged Fox News publicly on numerous occasions, especially the top-rated cable host Bill O’Reilly, whom he regularly tweaked and frequently placed in the top circle of infamy on a segment Mr. Olbermann called “The Worst Person in the World.”

Ratings for his show grew, though he never really approached the level of popularity Mr. O’Reilly has achieved. But he helped grow the MSNBC liberal brand by his frequent invitations to one guest, Rachel Maddow, who was eventually offered her own show on MSNBC.

Ms. Maddow became the 9 p.m. host following Mr. Olbermann and has built such a successful show that some NBC executives felt less concerned about losing Mr. Olbermann as the signature star of the network.

According to several senior network executives, NBC’s management had been close to firing Mr. Olbermann on previous occasions, most recently in November after he revealed that he had made donations to several Democratic candidates during the 2010 congressional elections — one of them, coincidentally, was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who has been the subject of many of his recent shows after being shot in an assassination attempt in Tucson on Jan. 8.

The top MSNBC executive, Phil Griffin, said the donations had violated NBC News standards and ordered Mr. Olbermann suspended. His fans responded with a petition to reinstate him that attracted over 250,000 signatures. Mr. Olbermann returned two days later. In his response he said the rules on donations had been “inconsistently applied.”

LOS ANGELES — Big city newspapers all across the country have suffered one indignity after another in the last few years. But few of them have been as hard hit — or gotten as much grief for it — as The Los Angeles Times.

Here in the city that has always strived to show how a sense of sophistication lies beneath the silicone and the superficial, The Times has joined the city’s impossible freeway traffic as a unifying force of complaint.

On a recent weekday evening, Edie Frère, owner of a stationery store in the city’s quaint Larchmont Village section, wistfully recalled reading The Times as a young girl, captivated by the old Hollywood starlets and socialites who graced the society pages.

“We need a paper that’s more, and this is less,” said Ms. Frere, 66. “I think it’s just not a world-class paper, no matter how you cut it. It used to be a world-class paper.”

Never mind that The Times is considered a front-runner to win a Pulitzer Prize this year for its coverage of city officials in Bell who gave themselves enormous salaries, a story that tapped into a growing national outrage over wasteful government spending. Or that it still maintains, despite all the bloodletting since the paper was bought in 2000 by the Tribune Company, 13 foreign bureaus, more than any other large metropolitan daily except The Washington Post. Or that it is the only big city daily that still employs a battalion of correspondents stationed in cities across the country.

In the sidewalk cafes, coffee shops, hair salons and studio lots of this sprawling metropolis, the notion that The Times remains one of the best newspapers still in business is a foreign one.

“When I came here back in ’74, it would take me all day to read the paper. Now it takes me 10 minutes — tops,” said Quintin Cheeseborough, 57, who is self-employed and comes to the Los Angeles Central Library occasionally to read The Times. On a recent morning, he was reading The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, but not The Los Angeles Times.

Since The Times was sold to Tribune, its newsroom staff has been cut in half. For many Angelenos, the downsizing is just one more sign that their city is losing stature. Add it to the list of other ego-bruising blows, like the loss of its professional football team, the flight of Fortune 500 companies from the city limits and a failed bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

“We don’t even have a football team. So what does that tell you?” said Mr. Cheeseborough, a note of resignation in his voice.

The Times’s weekday circulation has been nearly halved since 2000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, falling to just over 600,000 — a far steeper rate of decline than at many other big dailies like The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit Free Press and The Washington Post.

To identify where all the local harrumphing comes from, it helps to understand just how closely the rise of The Times is associated with the rise of Los Angeles as a capital of culture and commerce.

The paper’s founding families, the Otises and the Chandlers, used their fledgling publication to push for the development that helped give rise to modern Los Angeles. Water was first piped into the San Fernando Valley because they arranged for it. Los Angeles Harbor was built in part because of their backing.

Not that everyone shares such a dim view of the paper. Bill Mullins, 55, an equipment clerk at the city’s Central Library, said that despite the cutbacks, he still thinks The Times invests in the kind of journalism most news organizations have eliminated.

“The L.A. Times will do stuff that I love, like a story on a Los Angeles boy who went to Iraq. And it will start on the front page and jump to Page 12, and then take up all of Page 13,” Mr. Mullins said. “I mean, you can’t get that kind of stuff in three minutes on NBC or ABC.”

Still, seeing the paper sold to a bottom-line-driven corporate owner from Chicago was a major blow to many here. Even Mr. Mullins said that he thought the sale to Tribune would be the paper’s “death knell.” And what Tribune did to local coverage after acquiring the paper only reinforced those concerns. Times bureaus and printing facilities in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley once employed hundreds of people to publish separate editions, each with a locally tailored front page.

John S. Carroll, a former Times executive editor, recalled that each of those operations was like a separate paper. “It was like going to a newspaper in a medium-size city,” Mr. Carroll recalled of visiting there. “It was really something.”

Those operations are no more. Breaking local news no longer appears on the front page, because to save money it moved up its deadlines and moved late-breaking local, national and foreign news to a separate section.

================

The paper’s absence in the community is felt in ways beyond what it no longer covers. The Chandler family, apart from its role in city commerce and politics, was also a cultural force in Los Angeles.

“The intertwinement with the community was much greater when the Chandlers owned the paper, with their charitable contributions, their contributions to the arts,” said Leo Wolinsky, who left the paper in 2008 after holding a number of top jobs there, including executive editor. “If you walk around downtown L.A., The Los Angeles Times and the Chandler name is on everything. When the Tribune Company came, that got cut back severely.”

More than just cutbacks have left many Angelenos with a dim view of their paper. Under its current publisher, Eddy W. Hartenstein — a former DirecTV chief executive who became the fourth publisher under Tribune — The Times has run a number of ads on its front page and on the fronts of other sections that many here felt cheapened the paper. One ad that ran last summer, for a King Kong feature at Universal Studios, declared: “Universal Studios Hollywood Partially Destroyed.”

That ad prompted outrage from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who took the highly unusual step of writing a letter to Tribune’s chairman, Samuel Zell, accusing him of making “a mockery of the paper’s mission.”

Mr. Hartenstein, who through a spokeswoman said he would “pass” on a request to be interviewed for this article, defended the ad at the time, saying it met the paper’s standards. Mr. Hartenstein appears somewhat aware that he has some community relations mending to do. He wrote a letter to readers on Dec. 26 saying that the paper would remain committed to hard-hitting local coverage. But that is a complicated task.

Harvey Levine, 48, a television stage manager who lives on the city’s West Side, ended his subscription after unread copies began piling up at home. “The L.A. Times should be the paper that I trust and go to daily, and it’s not,” said Mr. Levine, a native of Canada who as a young man dreamed of a career in Hollywood and bought copies of the weekend Times in Toronto.

“I know they have a lot of really good writers and they win lots of awards, but I thought it just wasn’t enough,” he said.